Thursday, 6 February 2014

Frolakov

Sergey Frolakov

From time to time I would like to share with you my enthusiasm for individual artists who are part of that younger generation of Surrealists- many of whom are rapidly acquiring international recognition

My choice this month is Sergey Frolakov

It is clear from the above painting that Frolakov draws inspiration from medieval art, not least the extraordinary inventions of Hieronymous Bosch (1450-1516) whose Garden of Earthly Delights is a 16th Century masterpiece

It is also clear that Frolakov is his own man whose dazzling technique serves his equally inventive art majestically - as in the above triptych

I must confess know very little about this artist, other than that he is Russian and has exhibited recently in Paris and Brussels yet his talent is clearly one we should watch over the next few years

European Surrealism is going through something of a renaissance at the moment.

This is partly due to new technologies feeding into Fantasy art but also because in Eastern Europe and Russia there is a tradition still within art schools for teaching drawing - something that has almost vanished in many western art colleges

These are not computer-generated images but good old-fashioned oil on canvas paintings, each one revealing Frolakov's brilliant technique and wild, surreal imagination

Off we go!

Book Choice No.45

This early drawing by Ingres is based on an engraving by Rene Boyvin (c.1525-c.1589)

Ingres, like many other artists, developed his drawing skills by copying earlier artists.

From the number of erotic drawings in Guegan's book, Ingres was clearly also drawn to the subject matter!

Below are two similar drawings by Ingres and the original engravings by Giulio Bonasone (c.1510 - after 1576) that inspired them

Ingres

Bonasone

Whatever the nature of these drawings, the skills developed are clearly evident in Ingres' masterworks that followed, not least his celebrated Venus Anadyomene (c.1808) - a detail from which is shown below

Ingres' Venus

Like his early drawings, the later paintings by Ingres are erotically charged - not least the famous Turkish Bath (1859-63), a detail of which is shown below

Ingres - Turkish Bath (detail)

I have long been struck by the similarity in drawing style between Picasso and Ingres

According to John Richardson (Picasso's biographer) Picasso first encountered this painter at the great Ingres Retrospective in Paris in 1905

The earliest influence of Ingres is evident - according to Richardson - in Picasso's Woman with a fan (1905)

Picasso

The inspiration for this exquisite little drawing is an oil painting by Ingres dated 1819

The best way to see the direct influence of Ingres on Picasso is to compare two self-portraits.

The first is by Picasso, dated 1917-19

And here is the "inspiration" - a self-portrait by Ingres dated nearly one hundred years earlier!